


Five Nights

by mysticowl



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2015-07-22
Packaged: 2018-04-10 14:10:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4394870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysticowl/pseuds/mysticowl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you've been so alone for so long, it's hard to remember how to be a family with someone. Particularly if you have to redefine what kind of family you are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Nights

**Author's Note:**

> The thing about the Jon and Sansa fandom is that there are so many wonderful creators in it, writing fics, and making tumblr gif-sets and that means that sometimes instead of going to bed at a decent hour, I get stuck behind my computer, trying to get Jon and Sansa plot-bunnies out of my head and onto a page. Well, not so much plot as relationship exploration bunnies. Light on porn, but angst was doled out freely. (P.S.: this was originally posted as the summary, mostly because by the time I finished writing this, I have exhausted all my brainpower and couldn't tell the difference between summary and notes.)

**The First Night**

Sitting on the bed awaiting her third groom on her third wedding night, Sansa contemplates her feelings on the subject with a detachment she didn’t feel in either of the previous occasions. She didn’t think it possible that another attempt at marriage would turn out to be even more of a mockery of her childhood dreams on the subject, and yet, here she is.

And there he is, coming through the door and stopping awkwardly only a few steps in. Her husband. She has to force herself just to think the word. Her husband. Jon.

Jon shifts his weight from one foot to another then sighs and crosses the distance between them. He kneels in front of her to look up into her face, gently putting his hands on top of hers where they are folded on her knee. When she jerks her hands away he looks hurt, and they sit there in silence for a few moments, her watching the hurt in his eyes and feeling the warmth of his large hand on her knee.

“I won’t hurt you,” he speaks softly, although he can’t hide his hurt feelings from his voice either.

Guilt only adds further turmoil to her feelings. “I know,” she reassures him, spurred by a lifetime of instincts aimed at pleasing.

“I wanted to tell you earlier, you looked very beautiful tonight,” he says and it’s clear how uncomfortable he is giving compliments. But Sansa can’t hide her smile at that, remembering her own lessons to him on the subject. _How To Talk To A Lady_ as taught to Jon Snow by Sansa Stark.

They’re both Targaryens now.

Encouraged by the smile on her face, Jon moves a hand to her cheek and leans up towards her, but the clear look of panic on her face drives him all the way back. He stands up and moves away from the bed, pacing up and down while Sansa curls up on the edge of the bed, her face buried in her knees.

Finally, Jon stops, runs his hands through his hair, letting out a hiss of frustration. “We have to,” he tells her, both pleading and apologetic. “The Queen granted and annulment to you and the Imp because your marriage wasn’t consummated, but mainly because having you married to someone of her choosing is the only acceptable solution to the problem she has with you being alive.” Looks directly at Sansa then, as if hoping to convince her of the gravity of his words by adding the weight of his gaze. She lifts her head to meet it.

“Am I to be grateful then?” Sansa asks, letting her words be sullen, just a little, just to make him see how unhappy she is with the whole thing.

Jon returns to his previous spot, but doesn’t kneel, this time looking down at her. “This is the only way I knew how to protect you.”

It’s almost like a battle of wills, the moment that passes between them, except there is no battle to be fought. He placed a cloak about her shoulders hours ago. She’s just being stubborn now. And ladies shouldn’t be stubborn. Sansa has learned how to be pliant with men much less nice than Jon, men who didn’t particularly care to protect her, or care for her feelings. Men who were never brothers.

And so Sansa closes her eyes and feels shadows over her eyes as Jon leans down and touches his lips to hers.

**The First Night Home.**

“I thought you would have wanted to use your mother’s chambers. They’re still the warmest,” Jon says.

Sansa can’t suppress a shudder at the thought. It was bad enough being back in Winterfell like this, but in _her mother’s_ chambers?

“See, you are cold, we should call the servants and have them move our things,” he insists, misinterpreting the shiver.

“I’m not cold,” she snaps finally, putting down her hairbrush. Jon has a nightly ritual of watching her brush her hair before they go to bed. She didn’t think much of it back in King’s Landing, but now dark suspicions snake their way into her thoughts.

She wanted so much to come home, and it took so long to convince the Queen to let them come here, but even then she knew in some corner of her mind what it would do to the tentative peace she’s made with her marriage over the past year.

“Have you gone down to the crypt yet?” Sansa asks, half-turning in her seat so she can watch Jon in his.

Jon frowns and shakes his head.

“Oh?” She injects as much acid into her voice as she can, and the amount she feels right now is not inconsiderable. “Not in a hurry to see father and apprise him of the state of things.”  


“Sansa.” He says her name warily, softly. A little bit like he says it in bed in a way she’s learned to actively not mind and secretly crave.

“Perhaps you were hoping to convince me to move to mother’s rooms first,” she continues, ignoring his plea. “Then you could make a proper tale of it. _Guess what I did last night, Lord Stark? I fucked your daughter in her mother’s bed_.”

“Sansa!” This time there’s no softness, it’s a hoarse, horrified croak.

“I suppose it’s not as satisfying as it would be if you could rub it in to mother instead. The woman who hated and belittled you, wouldn’t you love to tell her what we’ve been doing. Though, I wonder...” She pauses, and lifts her chin, surveying Jon’s agony with cool detachment before delivering a final strike, “I wonder if it’s not mother who’s really on your mind. I do look like her, don’t I? In her rooms, were you hoping to imagine that you were sticking it to Catelyn Stark?”

Silence hangs between them oozing black, oily malice. Sansa didn’t even know she had that much venom in her. Finally, Jon gulps a breath, stands up, and is gone, and Sansa is alone.

**The First Night Apart.**

In some ways, Sansa doesn’t wonder that Jon wanted to come to Winterfell even more than she did. Life in King’s Landing is life in a mask, Queen Daenerys requires very specific shows of loyalty from them, and Jon was never very good at putting on a show. To keep Sansa safe, and she does know that to be his true motive, they had to prove themselves to be loyal to each other and the queen. Therefore, there were no separate bed chambers in King’s Landing. The first night when Sansa closed her eyes and found herself comforted by the warmth of his body led to nights when she felt herself roused by his touch, always gentle even when she could feel his strength, and to mornings, when the pleasures of the night before turned to ashes of anger and guilt in the pit of her stomach.

She finds she’s no longer used to being alone. The bed feels improbably large and empty and cold. She finally drifts off only to find herself waking periodically, knowing it couldn’t possibly be morning yet, and wondering in the first waking moments why it all feels wrong. In the morning, she is more exhausted than she was the night before. And Jon is still gone.

**The Second Night Apart.**

Did Jon look tired in the brief moments she saw him? Sansa isn’t sure, it was so brief. Who knew Jon, a man known for his direct military tactics, to be this good at evasion. But she only managed to catch one glimpse of him that day. It was for the best really, what would she say to him? That she was sorry? Was she?

**The Third Night Apart.**

She knows Jon went to the godswood that day. How long has it been since Sansa has gone? Oh, there had been weddings and state occasions, but for her own self, she hasn’t set foot in a sept or a godswood in a long time. Is she afraid to open her thoughts to the gods, Sansa wonders. Perhaps she is, for all the accusations she hurled at him in this room, it was he who sought the gods of their father and she who hasn’t yet gone down to the crypt. Tomorrow, Sansa decides, she will go about settings things right.

The bed is too big for her alone.

**The First Truth.**

It vexes Sansa to have her plans waylaid, but what with all of the avoiding each other they’ve been doing, Jon didn’t have a chance to tell her that he sent out ravens to notify the Stark bannermen of their arrival and invite them to visit. And Sansa doesn’t doubt it was an invitation, for all Jon has the royal authority of a Targaryen prince to order them to come. He knows that means nothing here. Here, he will always be Jon Snow, Ned Stark’s bastard, not Jon Targaryen, Lyanna Stark’s son. Here, she is Lady Sansa Stark of Winterfell, having shed Lannister, and Hardying, and Targaryen, all the cloaks they piled upon her shoulders. Here, they are family, them and a neat row of empty tombs.

They came, with their banners, to look upon their lord and lady, prince and princess, and feign indecision on whether or not they would offer their allegiance. They would be wooed with memories of Robb and open displays of Northern-ness, but Sansa was good at displays. It wasn’t any different than any other place she’s been, it wasn’t hard until...

Until the murmur, she isn’t even sure who said it, it barely reached her ears. “Don’t they look like Cat and Ned.”

It took the wind right out of her and sent everything she said to Jon three days ago right back at her. She wasn’t sure Jon heard it, until she saw his hand tighten on his glass. He lifted it to his lips for a big swallow of his wine and then kept right on going. Sansa has never seen Jon drunk, not even when they were children. Was he still down there, drinking, she wonders.

A creak of the door answers her thoughts and they’re in a room together for the first time since that night. The world both rights itself and spins a little more out of her control all at once. She looks him over, but he doesn’t look incapacitated, only moodier than she ever remembers seeing him.

“They’ll know if we don’t sleep in the same room,” he mutters, closing the door behind him.

“Our marriage has always been for show,” Sansa says lightly. She means it to be a soothing jest, but Jon is obviously in no mood to be soothed.

“And you know how to put on a good show. So good it made even me believe we were man and wife for truth. And all the while you hated me. I didn’t think you did.” Jon sinks down on the bed, onto his back, and presses his hands over his face. “Even when we were children, I didn’t think you really meant it, you were only saying as your lady mother. I thought you were happy to see me again. You _looked_ happy. But you were only pretending, weren’t you? You didn’t have to. I would’ve kept you safe no matter what.”

This is, Sansa thinks, the longest speech she’s ever heard from Jon. The honesty, now that the wine’s loosened his tongue, flows from him like river that’s burst its dam. She’s so shocked she can’t even protest, only whisper, “I wasn’t,” when he accuses her of pretence. Her voice comes out a little hoarse and quiet. She licks her lips and tries again now that he’s silent. “I wasn’t pretending.”

She waits for a moment, but Jon appears to have exhausted his capacity for speech. She climbs onto the bed beside him, where he won’t mishear her no matter if her voice fails. “I _was_ happy to see you.”

Jon takes his hands away from his face and looks up at her. After a moment, he reaches to tuck a strand of loose hair behind her ear and his fingertips linger on the skin of her cheek. It’s a shock to Sansa to realize how much she’s missed him over the past three day.

“When Stannis Baratheon came to the wall, he offered Winterfell to me,” Jon tells her. “I told him it belonged to my sister. For all your mother’s fears of me, or maybe because of them, I would never take what didn’t belong to me, no matter how much I wanted it. Until you...”

His arm falls back down over his eyes and he sighs, letting his words trail off. Sansa shakes her head, bewildered. “Jon?”

When he doesn’t answer right away she fears he has fallen asleep, but then he takes a deep breath and pushes himself up, rubbing his hands over his face. When he looks at her again, his expression is resigned. They’re on level now and so close, Sansa can taste the tang of wine on his breath.

“When Daenerys spoke of marrying you off, I panicked. I didn’t want anyone taking you away from me. There was... someone, I don’t remember who it was, some Council lord, he said, ‘That one’s had more husbands than Margaery Tyrell. Leastwise she doesn’t pretend to still be a maid.’ And he laughed and I just knew I wasn’t going to let them hand you over to another man. I knew I had to convince her to let us wed.”

A bitter smile twists Jon’s lips, “And that’s the tale of how Jon Snow thought he had the right to touch Sansa Stark like she was his.”

Sansa takes a steadying breath and exhales slowly. “I was happy to see you,” she repeats. “When I was first in the Eyrie, Petyr Baelish had me pass as Aleyne Stone, his bastard daughter. Aleyne had no brothers, but Sansa had one left to her, Jon Snow, and he was bastard strong. So I made Aleyne bastard strong, too. I had to be strong, I was alone. And then when I saw you, I wasn’t alone anymore. I thought had my brother back.

“And then all at once, you were not my brother but a cousin and future husband. It was like Joffrey, and Tyrion, and Harry all over again: I wasn’t your family, I was a woman between whose legs lay the gateway to the North. I was so angry at you. It meant so much to me to have my brother back and I thought it meant nothing to you. And when you came to my bed and I liked it, it made it all worse.”

“You liked it?” Jon’s lips twitch into a smile.

“The point of his confession isn’t your prowess in the marriage bed, my lord.” But Sansa is also smiling. Then she steels herself for the hard part. “I’m sorry. Those awful things I said. I’m so sorry.”

The levity is gone from Jon’s face too now. “Being husband and wife in King’s Landing was easier,” he says. “Here, it felt like every stone in the wall was accusing me. I could hear all the ghosts taunt me, ‘Who do you think you are, Jon Snow?’ And then, when you... it was all the things I was hearing in my head, only now I knew you were thinking them too.”

“I wasn’t.” There’s urgency in Sansa’s voice and she pulls herself closer to Jon. Her hands are on his shoulders and he leans his forehead to rest lightly on hers. “Being here with you as my husband and knowing how much I would enjoy it when you touched me, I felt so guilty, Jon. And all that anger I felt a year ago came back, so I took all my guilt and made it yours.”

“A husband and wife should share their burdens.”

“It has not been my experience.”

“But it was your parents’. It’s time we visited the crypt, Sansa. We’ll go tomorrow, together. It’s a poor way to repay a man for raising me as his son, taking his daughter to wife, but I can promise him to keep you safe and care for you.” Jon pulls back a little so he can look into her eyes once more. “I promise you that as well. You’re not alone.”

Sansa lets out a slow breath, letting his words sink into her. There are no ghosts here, she tells herself, only Sansa and Jon. Sansa and Jon.

She leans forward and nuzzles into him with a soft kiss. Jon returns it eagerly but gently. He pulls her into him, though it’s awkward as she’s already in her night shift and he’s still in full Lord of Winterfell regalia. He helps her strip him, and it’s a credit to his time on the Wall that there’s no fumbling even with his impatience. Sansa slides her fingers into his hair, something she often longs to but never consciously allows herself. She remembers Robb and Theon teasing him about his curls, and refuses to let guilt in with the memories. Jon puts his hands upon her thighs and slides them up under her shift, then pauses, looking at her questioningly. Something else he never asked of her and she never volunteered, but now Sansa nods. Jon’s grey eyes darken as he moves his hands further upward, his palms warm and calloused against her skin. Soon, her shift is up over her head and tossed aside. Naked for the first time to his gaze, she could feel a million things, but she only lets herself feel heat and anticipation.

Jon lays her down onto the bed and dips his head to taste the familiar skin of her collarbone then down to new territory of her breasts. In the past, men have touched her with cruelty, indifference, and to manipulate, but Jon has only ever touched her with gentleness, affection, and desire. Just as a husband should, and where it drove her mad with guilt before, the passion he stokes in her now is unadulterated. For the first time, Sansa lets him hear her pleasure in her moans and sighs. Encouraged, he continues his exploration further and down. She cries out in shock when she realizes his aim, but he’s sure of himself now, undeterred. His tongue brings her to a climax that leaves her panting breathlessly. Jon moves up over her, propped up on one hand so that he can continue caressing the skin of her side and her hip with the other, as if he cannot stop touching her. He dips his head down as if for a kiss then pauses, but Sansa knows now what it feels like to hold nothing back of herself. She winds her arms around him and pulls him down. The taste of her on his tongue is something she can bask in now. Her actions evoke a satisfied growl from him and he’s inside with one thrust. This is familiar, but _more_. It’s so much better when she can feel his body against hers.

Afterwards, wrapped in Jon’s arms in the dark, Sansa listens for the ghosts. She can feel them still, in the corridors beyond the doors of their bedroom. But now, she thinks they do not judge. Any ghosts that wander here would want her and Jon to be happy.


End file.
